As roadways and superhighways become more crowded, and traffic safety becomes more of a problem, all possible measures must be taken to make the highways as safe as possible. One of the measures that can be taken is to clearly define the separate traffic lanes. For example stripes are painted between the lanes to guide the cars within the lanes. These stripes may be solid, single or doubled, to indicate that no crossing is permitted, or dashed to indicate that vehicles may cross the line for passing etc.
However, at night, these stripes can be only dimly seen, and, with any amount of fog or precipitation, the stripes may be almost invisible, along with the road, making driving, potentially, quite hazardous. This situation can be enormously relieved by the use of "cats eye" reflectors along the road.
These reflectors can be mounted in the surface of the highway, and spaced at intervals along the edge, or along the center lanes, or both, to mark the lanes. The adaptation of "cats eye" reflectors along the roads provided a means for picking up the line of the center, or the edge, of the road very-much further ahead at night in clear weather, and especially, and more important, in foggy weather or in varying degrees of precipitation. These reflectors not only define a lane, or lanes, but also anticipate curves in the road ahead.
It is most advisable to expand the use of reflectors as much as practical along all of the lanes of all possible highways. However, there are practical problems in the installation of these reflectors. To begin with, there are many types, from a single reflector, to multiple reflectors.
The single reflectors require minimal mounting, and may be adequate where there is minimum wear or abrasion, as, for example, along the edges of a highway that car tires usually avoid. However, in the middle of the highway, where there will be, comparatively, much more traffic passing back and forth across the line of the reflectors, there is a need for more individual reflectors for visibility and redundancy, and they must sometimes face in both directions. This calls for larger units to accommodate more reflector elements, and, necessarily, larger and stronger bases, secured more deeply within the surface of the highway, and more resistant to wear, abrasion from car tires, and the inevitable risk of damage by snow plows and the like.
The larger and sturdier the unit, the more difficult it is to embed it within the pavement. The holes must be larger and, therefore, more difficult to cut, particularly through concrete, and the time and effort, and problems must increase with the size of the units, as well as the numbers of the units that must be installed.
The basic tool in use today for mounting the larger reflective units is a hand-held, motor-driven device with a plurality of circular blades with edges of material that are hard enough to cut into concrete, or any other highway surface material. These multiple blades act in a manner similar to a dado blade in wood; to provide a wide cut, of a fixed width. The cut can be made to a precise depth, within the surface of the road. The reflective insert must, obviously, have the same curvature, width, and depth as the cut to fit into the trench and be securely glued into the pavement. The reflectors must, of course, be on top and level with the pavement.
The hand-held, motor-driven device, or machine, is large and cumbersome and very difficult to control. It takes considerable skill to bring the machine into alignment with a given lane in the road, and hold it in that alignment for the entire cut. The machine, under enormous stress from the cutting blades, is pulling constantly away from its cut and from the operator. Aside from the strength and skill involved, this is, understandably, a very slow and tedious process, with only one cutter for each operator, and only his skill to achieve the right alignment and depth. His own weight and strength can do little to speed up the cutting process.
A further problem is heat and abrasive wear. Normally, when cutting a very hard material with an equally hard cutter, some liquid, such as water, is used to lubricate, and also cool, the cutter as well as the material being cut. This is seen, for example, in the classical whetstone used for sharpening scythes and other farm implements, where the lower part of a circular, rotating stone passes through a waterfilled trench before it reaches the edge of the tool being sharpened, or a can of water drips on the stone as it rotates.
However, with the hand-held, motor-driven device, this cutting process must be done dry, since it would be, physically impractical, if not unmanageable, to provide a water supply and dispenser for the hand-held cutter. An extra worker with a hose could be provided, but it would be messy, if not inefficient, to say the least. It would, undoubtedly, add to the discomfort and the confusion of the operator.
Aside from water to cool the pavement and the cutting blades, which may, or may not be practical, it is still necessary to clear as much as possible of the debris and dust out the holes, before the pre-formed reflective units are embedded and glued into the pavement. This clearing and cleaning can be done manually, but brooms or brushes must leave some dust or debris in the holes that could weaken the bond between the reflective unit and the pavement.
A more effective means for clearing out the hole, quickly and cleanly, would be to provide a blast of compressed air into the cut to clear out all of the debris and the dust, as well as water, if this has been used for cooling during the cutting. However, this would require an even-more bulky, heavy, and cumbersome attachment to the already-awkward manheld cutting device, or, again, another operator to perform this function.
It is therefore, and object of this invention to provide a machine for cutting holes in any pavement for the installation of safety, "cat's eye" reflectors.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a machine that is completely adjustable, and that can drop a cutter, in precise alignment and spacing, in a pavement to cut out a receptacle for a "cat's eye" reflector unit.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a cutter machine that can have much more power, and apply much more pressure than a single operator can control or apply, and that can cut the necessary holes in the pavement in a fraction of the time that would be required by a single operator.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a machine that can accommodate more than one cutter, to be uniformly spaced and make simultaneous cuts at proscribed intervals along a pavement.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a machine that can be adjusted to accommodate any sizes and depths of holes in a pavement for any purpose.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a machine that includes a water supply and hoses and nozzles to direct a stream of water at the cutters for lubricating and cooling as they cut into the pavement.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a machine that includes a source of compressed air, and hoses and nozzles to direct the compressed air into one of the newlycut holes to clear out all of the dust, debris, and water from the cutting operation, out of the slot to prepare it for the mounting of a reflective unit.